Are Nashville Uber Drivers Exposing Your Private Info – Including Your Home Address & When You’re Out of Town? [Updated]

Are Nashville Uber drivers placing your privacy at risk? In HUNDREDS of screenshots sent to EastNashvilleNews over the weekend, it appears that when Uber drivers are sharing info among their trips among each other and their friends, the passenger/customer’s address is shown prominently in the screenshots. While this is alarming on it’s own – combine this with the destination information that is also shown, and in nearly 60% of the time the destination was Nashville International Airport (BNA – 1 Terminal Dr) – meaning that not only was the customer’s home address exposed online, but also the fact they were now presumably out of town, since they were just dropped off at the airport, courtesy of the Uber driver.

We have masked the addresses for publication below. This is only a small sampling from the hundreds of screenshots we received over the weekend. While the screenshots were in reference to another upcoming investigation, this could not go unnoticed. While some of the Uber groups are set to ‘closed’, the information is easy enough to get for anyone that wants it. If were were able to gain access, then anyone could – drivers can fake verification, or no longer be a current driver, etc.. and some of the groups are even set to ‘public’ which means you don’t even have to be a member to view the information.

Even when presented with this information after we first published this article, many Uber drivers defended their actions, including Adam Shonting, who replied “…there is nothing saying I can’t tell people where I picked them up and where I dropped them. There is no right to privacy in an Uber…” – according to Uber’s contract with the driver, there is certainly an expectation of privacy, and releasing this information is against policy.

most uber drivers just give our passengers a ride to their destination. We report to uber if their is a problem with the ride or a passenger leaves a personal belonging in the car. Mayby they showed you what a ride looks like for the paper trail to explain safety features on each ride. Then you turn around and exploit that information for a news story. This is bottom feeding journalism.

Data often has multiple purposes. Some good and some bad. On the surface, seems the drivers are building a community. Nothing bad about that, provided it is supportive and not abused.

OTOH, sharing sensitive data of which names and locations+times definitely are, can be scary to people using the service. A ride from a hotel to the local airport, probably isn’t nearly as sensitive (provided a name isn’t included) as a ride from **any** residential area. Including a name (mine is extremely unique in the world) means that someone else knows not only where I am, but where I am NOT. That 2nd part is more important.

Last trip I took (last week), I told the taxi driver (no Uber there) an intersection to drop me off from the airport, said I was meeting some people there. Also took a photo of the cab door (which has the unique number) and the cabbie license. Standard things to do for smart travelers. Doing this overseas AND being certain the driver sees me taking the photo appears to make them be nicer and less likely to rip me off. Of course, knowing the approximate cost of a ride and pre-negotiating if there isn’t a meter is always smart. Many cities have apps for that.

Hate to think that my efforts to be quiet about any trips until AFTER I return home could be foiled by an Uber driver mindlessly sharing this data. Malicious or not, it is disturbing.